


Broken Mugs and the Ensuing Existential Dread

by powercorruptionlies



Category: Flight of the Conchords - All Media Types
Genre: Bret is sad, Broken Mugs, Existential Angst, Gen, Jemaine is obtuse, Late Night Conversations, Male Friendship, bros being bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26412568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powercorruptionlies/pseuds/powercorruptionlies
Summary: 'Doesn't matter. Just a long day.'
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Broken Mugs and the Ensuing Existential Dread

Living in Manhattan, you lose the sort of acuteness to noise that wakes you up in the middle of the night. People thrown against metal garbage cans, car alarms, house alarms, burglaries that you only know are burglaries when you turn on the news in the morning, verbal disputes right next door. Nothing phases Jemaine anymore, not like back home, where the briskness of the air or a car creeping through the estate would prompt him wide awake in the middle of the night; so, when a rustling from just outside the bedroom alcove stirs him, he isn't so sure he's actually lucid, or just in and out of dream-like worlds. 

'What's going on?' He asks the darkness, seeing a lithe curve of shoulder poking in and out of his line of sight from behind the cabinet. 

'Nothing.'

'You sound upset.'

'You always say that.'

True, Jemaine thinks; but this time, he isn't just saying it to say it, to fill a gap in conversation. 

'Well, yes, but,' he starts, reaching around the vacant doorframe to turn on the lights to the main room. Bret hisses, and Jemaine sees him shielding his eyes with the crook of his arm, covered with a soft blue fabric, 'you actually do sound quite upset.'

'Yeah, alright, and?'

Jemaine shrugs, not quite having an answer, but knowing, intrinsically, that there must be one. So, dutifully, he racks his brain for a truthful answer, and lands, again upon nothingness. Bret deserves more than an empty explanation regardless of his antsiness, he reasons, so says nothing at all. 

'I'm just trying to pick up the mug. We forgot to do it earlier.'

Jemaine can respond to this: it's physical, straightforward, and has a definitive end to its means. He steps into the living room and crouches down to Bret's level - ignoring his reddened eyes and nose and the wetness of his visage and the aggressive sniffing - and begins to collect the jagged blue shards. 

'It's not just about the mug, is it?' Jemaine eventually posits, daring a glance out of the corner of his eye when Bret stops moving beside him, a few pieces falling loose of his hands. He catches his friend shake his head, minutely, but the affirmation is enough. He steps over, slow and clunky for his awkward, cramped position, and works the rest of the shards out of Bret's hands, the image of Bret closing his hands around the shanks and creating an even worse, more purposeful mess flashing through his mind. 

'Let's got for a walk.'

-

By the time they hit Lispenard Street, Bret looking up at that one building with the garnet-red fire escape crawling down the oldest building on the street, Jemaine considers pressing the issue from earlier. It'd been a shot in the dark to ask Bret if something else was wrong; as far as he was concerned, it was completely on-brand for Bret to cry over a broken mug, especially if it was one he'd bought himself, and one bought out of some sort of righteousness at that. But, unfortunately, he'd hit on something possibly deeper and more troublesome than this, and he was aware of it, and now, like a future murderer confessing his premeditated crimes to you before they do it, he is now an accomplice to Bret's problems, and bore the knowledge of them, and... was expected to do something about it?

_Shit._

'Why did we never move in here?' Bret asks as they turn the corner onto Church Street. 

Jemaine thinks. 'Too expensive, I think.' 

'As if.'

It's the closest to Bret's laugh Jemaine's heard all night, so he leaves the conversation at that, wanting to protect the atmosphere just sparked. He looks at the Planet Fitness across the road, all the lights still on and people sparsely populating the treadmills facing out of the huge glass wall of the second floor. Jemaine vaguely promises himself to go someday, and maybe take Bret, and they can pretend that they're normal, and maybe feel better about themselves - that second one is for Bret, really. Jemaine's never particularly thought about himself, but now he is, and he hates it, and as much as he doesn't mind him, he doesn't want to think about himself the way that Bret does - consumingly, and constantly. 

'Wasn't your mum always saying that the apartment would go up in flames?' 

'Yeah, and I told her that just because it has a fire escape, doesn't mean it's inevitably going to catch fire,' Jemaine says, pressing his fingers together in his pockets. 

Bret hums a laugh, and then Jemaine copies the sound. They look at each other, stopped in the middle of the empty street, trying to remember what it looks like in the daytime when people pack each concrete slab and hole-in-the-wall store. And then, they laugh, wholly, and completely. 

'What was wrong earlier, Bret?' Jemaine takes advantage of the ease of the moment.

'Oh, nothing, man.' Bret turns away, his eyes losing their lightness, but his mouth still grinning. 'Doesn't matter. Just a long day.'

'Alright,' Jemaine concedes, kicking himself for letting his resolve falter.

-


End file.
